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I then tried a change-of-pace and installed Call of Juarez (yes, the original) which is a stone-cold TURD of a game. It's actually a masterclass in how NOT to make a game - it contains almost no choices, everything you have to do is either SHOWN to you or you're left guessing. Perfectly logical things are impossible and it has UNSKIPPABLE REPEATING CUTSCENES and TIMED SECTIONS where you have to replay a lot of stuff including the above cutscenes

It's now on my "worst game ever" spike...

It could never be that bad for me, if only for the ability to shoot people while reading from the Bible. But it really wasn't that great at the time and I can only imagine how much worse it feels to play now, particularly Billy's sections, which I largely hated. Horrible forced linear stealth for nearly half the game. Ugh.

You cannot understate how fucking HORRIBLE that bit is - that it lasted more than 10 mins was astonishing to me.

You can 'sneak' anywhere but people will 'see' you in certain places anyway - and certain things will get your discovered ALWAYS and - it really is the worst game I've played in quite some time.

I'm told the series improved tho - Gunslinger wasn't my cuppa but it seemed competent enough in the demo!?

I never finished Bound in Blood, but I liked what I played of it quite a bit. But then I liked Ray's levels in the original. Didn't love them - they clearly fell way below the bar for the genre at the time, and I have no real desire to ever go back to them - but the game treated the Western with just the right amount of crazed, po-faced seriousness for me to think it was worth struggling through the really bad bits. Bound in Blood was Ray's half of the first game with a bigger budget and far less of the terrible stuff, as far as I was concerned, and that was just fine by me.

The third one is awful, by all accounts. Misguided modern-day setting, tone deaf writing (two reasons I didn't bother) and horrible game design. Gunslinger got a lot of praise in part because critics remembered The Cartel and they were fed up with Dead Island, and they couldn't believe Techland had remembered how to make a fourth CoJ game that was simple, light-hearted and decidedly unpretentious. It's a shooting gallery but a good one, or so a great many people seem to say. I've played the first couple of levels or so. Liked them fine, I just have the usual enormous backlog that keeps distracting me from getting any further.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

I'm usually good at crossing bundle games off the backlog but I noticed I haven't played any of the retro shooters from the humble weekly sale: Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior Classic Redux, and Serious Sam First/Second Encounter HD. I installed Duke Nukem 3D first and played a few levels. Even on the second difficulty it's quite a challenge, both in not getting killed and navigating the levels. And it's crass, of course. Ten years ago I would be all over this, but now... Eh. I have better things to play.

Just out of curiosity I'll try out the HD mod, see what that's like compared to the original.

Edit: Turns out that's quite a bit. I grabbed a mod for the Atomic edition while I have the Megaton edition on Steam, and the latter has some small changes to the UI compared to the umodded Atomic edition, but the mod creates high-res textures for everything in the game, and turns all the models into 3D. Buuuut I still don't feel particularly compelled to play it. Although to the game's credit, it proved sufficiently captivating that I let my tea get cold while I was playing it.

FEZ
Very pretty but not my kind of game, in that it's an indie platformer with a unique puzzle twist, these are getting quite old (except for The Swapper, which is great).
McPixelWhat even is this? Everything explodes and I saw an alien smoking a joint, then lost interest.

Jack LumberLog Ninja.

Rogue Legacy
Not from a bundle, I bought this in the sale. It's nice, I'm not very good but I hear it gets easier because your upgrades accumulate and make you more powerful. Not much more to say, really.

Trackmania2 Canyon and Valley
Very pretty, very fun to control; handles a bit like Burnout Paradise but a little tighter and in shorter, more focused bursts. Extremely satisfying.

Sine Mora
Also very pretty, featuring the best mechanical design since Metal Gear Solid. Like FEZ, though, it's not my kind of game. I suck at shmups.

Sol Survivor
Pretty standard tower defence game as far as I can tell, I'd rather play Sanctum 2.

SpaceChem
This game just makes me feel stupid to be quite honest. I need to get over my confusion and work out what the different tile things do. It's a lot more complex than you'd expect from a game of this type, usually they're the 'easy to pick up, hard to master' trope... This is hard to pick up, probably hard to master. I don't think I did a tutorial though and probably should've done.

Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken
Seemed solid enough, kind of reminded me of what I think Shank probably is (I played it for a few minutes ages ago). I didn't play for too long because I think I saw enough to 'get' it and figured I'd move on to something else.

AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for GravityPretty fun, not a lot to it but not everything has to be complex. Thumbs up deployed.

Ghost Master
Gave up pretty quick, probably due to reverse nostalgia and tutorial fatigue. I'll admit that I didn't actually experience any gameplay, should I try it again with some patience or just not bother?

Played some more Double Fine prototypes, I still don't really care for them as actual ideas. Also played some Worms games apart from Armageddon; they pretty much all suck except for the crazy golf one which kind of works; Ultimate Mayhem is pretty shoddy (is the homing missile seriously line of sight only?), the one where you shoot coloured blocks with a bazooka is just crap and the pinball one is alright but FX2 is better so it's redundant, really. I also tried Alien Shooter 2: Conscription and wished I hadn't.

I'm running out of easy-to-sample games to sample, most of what I have left are story-driven or they're sequels to games I haven't finished yet. Maybe I'll put this backlog cull on hold for a bit.

A Virus Named Tom: It's an action puzzler. It's alright. I dislike action the action part of the game.Eador: Can't get into it. It's fairly difficult, and attacking enemy spaces is ridiculously punishing.Eets Munchies: Indistinguishable from a mediocre flash puzzler.Faerie Solitaire: Solitaire with a bad story that I keep playing for some reason.Hell Yeah: It's an okay platformer, but nothing special. The aesthetic, beating up cutsy things, is pretty tiring.Incredipede: Again, it plays like a better flash puzzler. It's a bit too slow in multiple ways to hold my interest.Mini-motor racing: A fun top down racer to start, but it goes nowhere quickly.Pid: It's good enough, very floaty, but that fits its dream-like nature.Stazius: I'm a terrible judge because I don't like shoot-em-ups. Zigfrak: I haven't been able to get into it. I'll try again soon, but it seems like an okay space game.

The last time I did this I ended up trying Puzzle Agent. That's the most boring game I've played in a long time. So I'm going to give Puzzle Agent 2 the skip.

Puzzle Agent 2: No chance in hell. Well ... I might. When I've done all the others. As a token gesture.

Eets Munchies: Mostly pretty boring. Stumped me on how to max is out a few times, but it kept introducing new things and doing little of interest with them. It doesn't encourage exploration but in some few cases it requires you to explore with what little you have to go on if you want a top score. Harmless, cute, probably not bad for younger kids, but mostly boring and more frustrating than interesting in such few cases as it strays into the weird.

I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardustís Music Sounds Better With You. Thereís lots of fog. --tomeoftom

Rock of Ages: There's a game I want to like in here, but I can't steer the rock and the strategic layer has some arcane method of strategy that's wholly lost on me. Might give it another shot... Eventually.

Zeno Clash 2: I did the tutorial and I truly hate the way that combos flow in this game. It's gorgeous, but I doubt it'll be worth the frustration.

Superfrog HD: Whereas good platformers place collectables in such a way as to guide the player's route through the level, Superfrog seems to be intent on blocking out the sun with them. Fitting, considering I only booted the game up for cards anyway.

A Walk in the Dark: Plays exactly like someone took all the indie platformers worth playing (VVVVVV, Limbo and Super Meat Boy) and crammed them together with floaty jumps and shoddy hitboxes. Lovely soundtrack, though:

I got Rock of Ages on the cheap due to some comments that were quite impressed with it, and found it serviceable, but nothing great. The steering is intentionally unwieldy, and you have to take it fairly slow on purpose until the final ramp.

As for the strategy screen, that actually can work fairly well if you know what you're doing, but the more interesting and fun upgrades make a huge difference. Basically, you want to block of and slow down the opponent ever time there's a funnel point. This gives you a time advantage that you can use to reach their base the final time before they reach yours.

Rogue Legacy gets so much easier once you decide on a build and start upgrading towards it.

I found that the game got easier as I upgraded these things (in this order):
Health - Necessary for a long run. Upgrade it first and often.
Double jump and Dash, in that order.
Vampirism, the health gain helps you a lot at earlier levels, and then again later in the game.
Gold collection and negotiating with Charon (buy this every time it's available).
Damage. I found that damage is a better upgrade than armor, because one-shotting enemies makes the game much easier. Otherwise, some enemies don't rebound from your attacks (fucking portraits), and you have a much harder time killing enemies in advantageous positions (on spikes, down an incline, behind a turret).

You gradually get better as a player, but your character improves far more quickly. Also, try some miner runs if the upgrade is open. When you do well on a miner run, you do really well, which makes it much easier to unlock gold and charon improvements.

Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken: Like a blast from the past. Feels like a newgrounds animated short that got turned into a game. Not very good.

I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardustís Music Sounds Better With You. Thereís lots of fog. --tomeoftom

I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardustís Music Sounds Better With You. Thereís lots of fog. --tomeoftom

Fieldrunners: Not entirely sure why this is in my not played list, I played it loads on iOS way back on my iPhone 3G. It has a weird lag where if you move the mouse the frame rate dies, apparently it can be solved with a controller but as I've technically played this to death I'm filing it under 'nothing to see here'. If you looked up 'tower defence/maze builder' in the dictionary this is what you'd find.

This annoucement was brought to you by the friends of the bereaved via Fairway Solitaire...

I thought I would disregard your warnings. But it seems that, on PC, my options are limited to either the 'Tee to play' edition (yes, F2P) or the sequel 'Fairway'. Well, via BigFishGames at least. Is the sequel as good/dangerous as the original?

There's the free Win8 app, but I guess that doesn't play well with my Win7 install.

Hm, I see there's a chrome version - that may be what I'm looking for?